MONEY MATTERS
Thinking of buying or selling a home? Maybe refinancing? Maybe you’d like some tips on buying and selling homes and home loans; If so, you might want to follow up on Money Matters in the coming months, as I’ll be providing all sorts of tips and insights as we go. approaching the season of buying and selling houses. I’ll be discussing a wide variety of real estate and mortgage financing topics that you need to know (things real estate agents don’t want you to know). Well, good agents won’t have a problem with you knowing this information, but part-timers and less ethical traders would certainly prefer you not to know what I’m going to share with you.
You see, buying or selling a home is the biggest investment of a lifetime for most people and it’s a BIG deal… a transaction made up of people, emotions, contracts and cash… all the ingredients for the legal and financial pain if you don’t know what you’re doing. Real estate agents earn a commission when a home is sold, whether it is the listing agent, the listing agent, or both. Real estate agents typically (and legally) represent sellers in a real estate transaction, not buyers. However, every day, home buyers refer to the real estate agent as “my real estate agent”…they are not your real estate agent…they are the agent for the seller of the house and the agents They have a legal duty to obtain the best selling price. For the Seller Plus, anything you tell them can and probably will be used against you to get a higher asking price for the deal. Sellers, on the other hand, are often manipulated into signing long-term listing contracts for up to a year by an agent who will simply throw the listing into the multiple listing service (MLS) and wait for another agent to sell the property. for them.
For agents, the name of the game is getting listing contracts…a common catchphrase among real estate agents is “if it doesn’t list, it doesn’t last.” Once an agent obtains a listing contract from a home seller, he or she will earn most of the commission when the home is sold, whether the home is being sold by the seller or another agent. Not many sellers know this fact and many swoon into long-term listing deals hoping to sell their homes for the highest possible price only to find out they don’t. Agents will say and do almost anything to get a listing contract without breaking the law. And the big question for home sellers is whether they are working with a full-time or part-time agent. What is your experience in marketing and sales? Do you really want to sign a long-term listing contract with a part-time worker who has a finger in the tub and no business background? We were talking about a business, right?
Whether you are buying a home or selling a home, you must be clear that you will be signing legally binding contracts and relying on mortgage lenders to provide financing for the project. The question then becomes; How much do you know about contract law and mortgage financing? What are the most important elements of a contract and how does it affect you as a buyer or seller? This series of articles is usually drawn from my e-report (101 Real Estate Tips for Money Buyers, Sellers, and Borrowers). The report is designed as a crash course to provide you with the information you need to know to protect your legal and financial interests, whether you are buying or selling a home. This series of articles will cover the information you need to know to avoid making blatantly stupid mistakes that could hurt you legally and financially and try to have a little fun in the process…
Which reminds me! If you’d like a FREE copy of my eReport: 101 Tips for Money Buyers, Sellers, and Borrowers, go to the Smart Books website, email us and request a copy and we’ll send it to your email address within 24 Hours-Absolutely Free-Other Ezine Articles Exclusive! Don’t forget to say you saw it in the Ezine! Stay tuned!
Copyright © 2006
James W. Hart, I.V.
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